A thin film transistor organic electroluminescent device (hereinafter referred to as “TFT-OELD”) may be cited as a highly promising future current luminescent display device that realizes a larger size, higher definition, a wider viewing angle, and reduced power consumption.
A method for driving a typical conventional TFT-OELD will be described.
FIG. 5 shows an equivalent circuit of the conventional TFT-OELD. Only one pixel is shown in the drawing although there are actually many pixels in a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns.
A pulse is output from a shift register 101, and an analog signal of an analog signal supply line 1022 is transmitted to a source line 1042 via a transmission switch 1032. For a gate line 109 that has been selected this time, the analog signal is transmitted to a retention capacitor 1062 via a switching transistor 1052. The conductance of a current transistor 1072 is controlled in accordance with the analog signal, and an organic EL element 1082 emits light of an intensity level based on the analog signal.
FIG. 6 illustrates the conventional TFT-OELD driving method.
A pulse SR0 of a shift register of a zero-th column causes an analog signal A to be transmitted to a potential S0 of a source line of a zero-th column. Further, a pulse SR1 of a shift register of a first column causes the analog signal A to be transmitted to a potential S1 of a source line of the first column. First, while a pulse G0 of a gate line of the zero-th row is being applied, the potential S0 of the source line of the zero-th column is transmitted to a potential C00 of a retention capacitor of the zero-th row and the zero-th column, whereas the potential S1 of the source line of the first column is transmitted to a potential C01 of a retention capacitor of the zero-th row and the first column. Then, while a pulse G1 of a gate line of the first row is being applied, the potential S0 of the source line of the zero-th column is transmitted to a potential C10 of a retention capacitor in the first row and the zero-th column, whereas the potential S1 of the source line of the first column is transmitted to a potential C11 of a retention capacitor in the first row and the first column. Each organic EL element 1082 (FIG. 5) emits light of a predetermined intensity level in accordance with the potential of each retention capacitor 1062 (FIG. 5), i.e., the corresponding analog signal A.
An area gray scale method is known as one of the driving methods of a liquid crystal display device. In general, a liquid crystal display device has a problem of a limited viewing angle range due to a marked change in the transmissivity or the reversal of gray scale in a direction of a viewing angle that deviates from the direction of the normal line with respect to a display surface. The foregoing area gray scale method is intended to solve the problem, and it is adapted to represent a gray scale in terms of an area ratio of full transmission to no transmission. This realizes a wider viewing angle range of a liquid crystal display device.
According to the conventional TFT-OELD driving method mentioned above, the analog signals are used to control the conductance of the current transistor 1072 so as to control the luminous intensity of the organic EL element 1082. In other words, to obtain a half tone, the conductance of the current transistor 1072 must be set to be equal to the conductance of the organic EL element 1082, and the voltage applied to the organic EL element 1082 must be controlled by dividing the voltages of the current transistor 1072 and the organic EL element 1082. In such a case, however, there has been a problem in that, if nonuniformity in the conductance of the current transistor 1072 should be produced within a panel or between panels, then the nonuniform conductance will be visually recognized in the form of nonuniform luminous intensity of the organic EL element 1082.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to reduce the nonuniformity in the luminous intensity of a luminescent element (an organic EL element in particular) caused by the nonuniformity in the conductance of transistors in a current luminescent display device, particularly in a TFT-OELD, thereby to improve image quality.